


Teach Me Your Words

by 99BottlesOfBeerOnTheWall



Series: My Friend Filthy - The Collected Works [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Banter, Caleb is Royally Fucked and needs Help, Canon-typical language, Depressing Realizations, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hilarity Ensues, Humor, I can’t help myself ok?!?, Mama Nott confirmed, Nott has a Potty Mouth, Pre-Canon, Starring: some bullshit German, with a teaspoon of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14964980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99BottlesOfBeerOnTheWall/pseuds/99BottlesOfBeerOnTheWall
Summary: Caleb and Nott are on the road, when an innocuous word leads to an interesting question. One awkward discussion later, they know each other better, and they both learn some things.





	Teach Me Your Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Professor_Snip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Professor_Snip/gifts).



> This is just a short little moment I imagined would probably happen at some point. An expanded second fic, with several chapters, will be coming along soon. But this is just a little bonus in the meantime.

Nott liked doing one thing. And that was traveling with Caleb. He made for a rather quiet companion, but he wasn’t a frightening one either, and what he never said in words he made up for in gestures. They were only little things, holding her hand while they were walking, spreading his coat out for them to sleep on at night, steeling glances at her face when she wasn’t looking, and he always ate from the same plate as her (when they had plates anyway).

They weren’t much, and most people would have missed them entirely, but Nott welcomed them gladly. Because Caleb, for all his sadness, the pain he wore clearly on his sleeve, with the constant melancholy that dogged him, had forgotten how to express his happiness. His contentment had become as fragile as glass, and insubstantial as a passing glimmer of sunlight through clouds, so that it was incredibly difficult to perceive. And it took this understanding to realize that even a slight gesture meant that the feeling conveyed was much deeper than it appeared.

So while Caleb never said anything, Nott could tell he was very happy to be near her.

One thing Nott didn’t like was water. It wasn’t as good as booze to drink, clear, completely tasteless, and drinking it didn’t actually do anything for you. Putting water on your body just removed all the dirt that covered your scent, so it would be easier to track you down. And besides that, Nott had once tried to breathe in water, and it had not been a pleasant experience.

Which was why Nott stopped dead in her tracks, with her feet two inches from the water, looking down into the dangerous glitter as it roiled past. It was not a very large stream, but it would be deep for Nott. This was not nice at all.

Caleb, lost in thought, had already waded in a few feet. Watching him do it with so little hesitance made Nott itch with envy, momentarily wishing that she could be as big. Then it filtered into her brain that Caleb was leaving her, and her stomach lurched with panic, making her squirm on the stream bank.

“Uh-“ Nott faltered, nervously speaking over the stream’s chatter. “Caleb?”

Her voice made Caleb stop, and he turned around. Seeing her still on the stream bank made him frown a little in confusion, the water swirling around his knees.

“I—I don’t like the water...” Nott stammered, then held out her arms in a wordless request to be carried. With a flash of understanding, Caleb came trudging back, water streaming out of his coat. Nott hissed as some of it splashed on her, shrinking away in discomfort.

“Well that’s not very good is it, _ja_?” Caleb remarked absently, speaking to her sternum. “Up you go then,”

And he seized her underneath her arms, to hoist her up, which made her immediately forget about the water. She had been expecting Caleb to carry her out in front of him, in the same way you might carry a toddler that had something dirty on its clothes, but instead her human friend heaved her up to sit on his shoulders. It was a long, long way up, higher than Nott had ever been before, and the hight was intimidating.

With a nervous shiver, Nott reached out to wrap her arms around Caleb’s head, holding onto his hair as if it were the mane of a horse, and keeping as tight of a grip as she could. Caleb, as if he understood her nervousness, reached up to clasp his hands over her legs, securely holding her down, and that made Nott feel a little better.

Holding her up, Caleb turned around and splashed back into the stream. Without having to be in the water, Nott found the ride sort of fun, as he began to wade deeper in. The world swayed as he moved, pitching gently with every step, and from Caleb’s shoulders she could see quite far. It all looked different from so high up, and it felt a little strange to realize that Caleb saw things from such a hight all the time.

The stream, though it was clear, was actually fairly deep, and Nott was glad to be carried. The water had already risen up to Caleb’s thighs, and he was walking more carefully in the deep water. Then with a lurch downward, he hit a deeper spot, where the water came all the way up to his waist, and Nott squeezed tighter on the two handfuls of red hair she was using for balance.

“ _Scheisse_.” Caleb swore as he fumbled for a moment, then he regained his footing, and squeezed Nott’s legs reassuringly. “You should be glad you’re not in this water, little friend, its cold.”

“Thanks Cay,” Nott mumbled as he struggled on.

Caleb was soaked to the waist when he emerged on the other side, while Nott was still perfectly dry, but he didn’t seem to mind it very much. He didn’t put her down again either, which was what Nott had expected him to do. Instead he seemed in no hurry to be rid of the weight around his neck, and still anchored her legs as he trudged on. For a moment Nott considered how much more comfortable she would be on the ground, then she realized again how much she could see, and also how safely Caleb was holding her down. And she decided that if Caleb wanted to carry her, she wouldn’t complain.

As she began to get more comfortable, she realized another bonus: she could practice braiding Caleb’s hair. She always liked petting Caleb’s head, she’d realized long ago, but usually her attentions left his hair in complicated knots. Until one night when they’d settled down to camp, and Caleb had been absentmindedly braiding pieces of grass. Nott had avidly watched him until Caleb realized she was interested, and he’d spent the rest of the time before they fell asleep showing her different ways to do it.

So she settled down to practice on Caleb’s hair, while he carried her along.

“What does _scheisse_ mean?” Nott asked, clumsily plaiting Caleb’s tousled mane.

“What?!” Caleb choked, trying to glance up at her, before Nott impatiently forced him to keep his head still.

“You say all these funny words,” she explained, “and I don’t know what they mean.”

“Oh,” he processed this information for a moment, and Nott could see his eyebrows knit in a frown. “Well they’re Zemnian words.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a language,” Caleb said, and his voice sounded wrong, a little choked and forced. “I learned it...a long time ago...”

He seemed lost in thought. And usually Nott observed that when Caleb was occupied with his thoughts, it was with thoughts he didn’t find pleasant, but couldn’t shake off. He was so quick to loose his way in the dark again. So Nott resolved to pester him, until he’d forgotten whatever he was thinking about. That, Nott was sure, would be the best way.

“So what does _scheisse_ mean then?” Nott demanded, seizing the first question that occurred to her.

“Hmmm?”

“What do you mean, when you say _scheisse_.”

“Well,” Caleb huffed out a little forced laugh, sounding embarrassed. “It is...not a very nice word.”

“I’m an adult!” Nott indignantly rebuffed, adding in a superior tone, “I’m a mature woman.”

“Yes you are...”

“So I can know dirty words!”

“It means _shit_ , in Zemnian,” he finally admitted, badgered until he was forced to give.

“ _Scheisse_!” Nott immediately crowed, triumphantly testing the word. Caleb cringed.

“Probably, it was not a good idea to tell you that.”

“Tell me some more,” was the only eager response he got.

“I’m not going to teach you swearwords in Zemnian!”

“Why not?” She demanded.

“Because then you will say them all the time,” Caleb shot back, wincing at the thought. “And then I will have to listen you, swearing in my tongue, reminding me that I taught you how to do it.”

“I swear all the time anyway.” Nott claimed. Then she couldn’t help but grin, as a wicked thought popped into her head, and she resolved to do it. “What if we did a trade? I teach you some nice goblin, and you teach me Zemnian, so we both know what we’re saying.”

“I don’t know if that is a good idea...”

But Nott didn’t listen, she was too busy thinking of words. “Ok. Hmmmmm...a nice goblin swearword...” Nott hummed as she contemplated deeply. “Oh! This is a good one, though really it’s more of an insult than a swearword. _O tach kelaan._ ” She stated happily, and she could practically feel Caleb preparing himself to hear the meaning. This would definitely help distract him. “It means, _you smell like an Elf_.”

“That is not very bad.” Caleb said, smiling a little at the anti climax.

“No!” She contradicted hotly, and tilted her chin up to declare sagely, “it’s a dire insult.”

“Of course, I should have guessed that.”

“Now you have to tell me something in Zemnian.” Nott demanded, tugging on Caleb’s hair as a corroboration of her statement.

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea...”

“Of course it is!” She said, brushing the protest aside. It was a good idea, because this line of questioning appeared to be quite distracting, and Caleb needed distraction from more upsetting thoughts. “I told you I’m mature enough to hear it.”

“Well,” Caleb sighed thoughtfully, and even though there was no sadness in the sound, it still worried Nott. There was a labored wheeze trapped in all Caleb’s sighs, and it always itched at Nott to hear it. “What do you want to know then?”

“How do you say...” Nott paused to think of something really offensive, since the explicit nature of this whole conversation seemed to be one of the main things keeping Caleb engaged. “How do you say, _brainless bollocks licker._ ”

“I am _not_ going to tell you how to say that!”

“Fine,” Nott said, relenting slightly, “just _Bollocks_ then.”

“ _Gott_ , I can’t believe I’m doing this...”

“Come on, you promised you would tell me.” (Which wasn’t strictly true)

“I don’t think I did, but...” For a moment Caleb hesitated, and Nott was wondering if she might have to pester him some more. But finally he answered her question, without more teasing. “It’s _böckchen_ in Zemnian.”

“ _Böckchen_?”

“ _Ja_.”

“I like that one.” Nott decided. “And now you get to learn another goblin one.”

“You say that like it’s a privilege,” Caleb mused, “when I’m really not sure it is.”

“Alright, lets think of another favorite...” She said, simply ignoring his reluctance, and making a show of thinking hard. Really she’d had this particular gem picked out since they started talking, because goblins could be colorful with their insults. “What about, _ore ghul dran occagec mul’dan_. That’s another good one.”

“And what does that one mean?”

“ _Your mother takes Dick in every hole_ ,” Nott recited happily.

Caleb choked on nothing, and stumbled for a moment, before exclaiming “ _Nott_!” The reaction only made Nott glow with mischievous satisfaction, glad to see that her instincts were right. She definitely had him distracted now.

“Don’t you wanna practice it?” She asked with assumed innocence, pushing Caleb a little farther. “You’ll forget how to say it if you don’t.”

The suggestion made Caleb flush pink, the color clearly visible even underneath all the dirt on his skin. It surprised Nott, unaccustomed to seeing him display so much emotion, and she would almost have worried that he was hurt, if he wasn’t still carrying her firmly on his shoulders. Apparently he blushed when he was embarrassed.

“No—“ he stammered weakly, “I think I am good on that one.”

“I’ve got my next question ready,” Nott said, letting him off the hook for the moment. “When you say _ja_ , what does that mean?”

The more innocent question made him relax, his shoulders sagging a little bit with relief, and he answered readily. “That one is easy, it means _yes_.”

“ _Ja_.” Nott said, testing this unfamiliar word out, as she had all the others. “Alright. Now I’ve got to tell you another goblin phrase.”

Her human friend only shook his head.

“ _Durkaan dran._ “ Nott finally decided. “It means _donkey dick_.”

“That one I actually like.” Caleb said, with a tiny little shrug and a typically hollow smile.

“You can use it for any situation.” Nott agreed.

So they slowly passed on into a long discussion of all kinds of words and phrases. Everything from insults, to everyday objects like the stones in the road, or the different woodland foliage. Most of them Nott promptly forgot, but it was the recitation of meaningless phrases that really counted. It was an exercise in triviality.

While Caleb had seemed uncomfortable at first, he quickly grew at ease, and even found it in himself to laugh at some of Nott’s more ridiculous contributions. The dose of distraction was clearly doing good, and Nott could only congratulate herself on her own skill and adept quickness, in caring for Caleb’s emotional state. He was delicate, and easily breakable, but the more Nott spent time with him, the more she grew in assurance.

He just needed help to wake up.

“Ok, I’ve got another one.” Nott said, breaking a silence that had been gradually falling as her invention flagged. She’d learned how to say everything from _father dearest_ to _your penis has sores_ but she couldn’t come up with prompts forever. “You said this a few days ago, when that farmer threw rocks at me outside of the last village.”

Caleb only hummed, but he was clearly listening, and it was enough to content Nott. He seemed thoughtful now, but not lost in himself, and she didn’t see any signs that he was thinking of unpleasant things.

“You called him a _Mutter Ficker._ ” Nott said, struggling to pronounce it, just as she’d heard Caleb produce the words. Zemnian had very particular pronunciations, that she failed to capture with the same easy confidence that Caleb possessed, it just didn’t come as naturally.

“It means _Mother Fucker_.” Caleb said absently, no longer as reluctant to reveal the meanings as he’d been in the beginning. “That one’s basic, I don’t know why that didn’t come up till now...”

“ _Mutter ficker_...” Nott mused. Then she clarified, just to be sure, even though she felt pretty sure of the answer, “which is which?”

“ _Ficker_ is _fucker_.” He explained.

“Oh...” Nott chewed on that revelation for a moment, turning the word over in her mind: _mutter...mutter..._

Mother.

That pulled her up short, feeling a lurch of tension in her stomach, as she contemplated the truth. All that time ago, in the dark, in the dungeon, in a moment of delirium and weakness...Caleb had called her Mother...

It was a heartbreaking realization. Pitiful, because his real mother, whoever she was, wasn’t in that cell, but Caleb had clearly wanted her. The nearly euphoric way he’d smiled when he’d mistaken her, proved how desperate that longing had been. But Nott wasn’t his mother, she knew that, anyone could see that. And that he could ever have mistaken her for a human woman, only highlighted in distressing colors how fevered and broken he’d really become.

All his strange behavior that night suddenly made sense. The total lack of fear when he recognized her, because he didn’t truly recognize her, and the way he’d reached for her. He’d been so affectionate, so ready to receive her, because it was a loved one that he saw. She’d felt how fever warm he was that night, but she’d never realized till now how disconnected from reality the days of thirst had made him.

Her poor, sad, lonely boy, seeing beloved faces when he was really all alone.

But he hadn’t been all alone. Nott just as suddenly realized that too, because she’d been there. She may not have been the person he thought she was, and that hurt, which forced Nott to wonder why. She knew she wasn’t Caleb’s mother, so why should it sting to tell herself that?

Because in a way, she realized with a shiver, she _wanted_ to be.

Maybe she hadn’t been Caleb’s mother, her face not the one he’d recognized and wanted. But she’d been there in the same way, determined to carry out the same purpose, and all aimed at the same goal. To take care of him, as his mother would have.

Because really, she already was one. Mother’s took care of their boys, protected them from harm, fed them to make them strong, comforted them when they were frightened. And here Nott had been, a goblin from a different race entirely, doing all these things just like a proper mother would. She might not be Caleb’s biological mother, but she was filling the role anyway.

The truth was that Caleb really _needed_ a mother, and just like any real mother would, Nott was going to make herself exactly what he needed.

All this flashed through her mind in one rush of sudden understanding. Not as if one logical point was following another through her brain, but merely as an instantaneous understanding of the whole. She saw it all.

Once it was over Nott realized equally that Caleb couldn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t accept her help. Observation had taught Nott that Caleb wouldn’t, even couldn’t, see himself as worthy of that care. He would push it away the moment he knew of it. In the shattered prism of Caleb’s understanding, his own worth was empty, his value was quite simply nothing. So with a rush of painful realization, Nott knew with absolute certainty, Caleb could never understand who she truly was.

Which made her realize how long she’d been silent, and she jolted with the nervous idea that Caleb might get suspicious of it. If she was going to hide her motherhood from him, she couldn’t for even one moment act like something had changed. And that meant she had to speak up, before he noticed her silence.

“ _A dratch ore yegretch fraagna_ ,” Nott recited, as if she’d been struggling to come up with another goblin phrase all this time, instead of completely reevaluating her entire identity.

“Oh _Gott_...” Caleb grumbled, with pleasing unconsciousness. He seemed completely unaware of her busied thoughts, too caught up in his own mind, to see when Nott briefly lost herself in hers. “I can’t wait for this one.”

“No, this one’s nice!” Nott protested, regaining her energy, and throwing herself back into the easy banter. “It means _I fart in your general direction._ ”

They still traded insults, and Caleb still carried her on his shoulders, and he never seemed to realize that something had been wrong. And Nott still braided his hair, and talked just as usual, but could never shake the creeping urge to contemplate what she’d realized. If she was a little more distractible, Caleb never noticed, and if she was a little more fond, Nott couldn’t help it.

After all, Mothers were supposed to be loving, and care for their little boys.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Google Translate.
> 
> If my German is horrible, blame the internet, or feel free to correct me. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.


End file.
